Marlborough Express - Weekend Express
Award choice
Marlborough man Phill Dunn describes himself as an ordinary bloke who happens to be a painter. Phill, who won the Peters Doig Marlborough Art People’s Choice Award earlier this year for his painting has been painting for 19 years, since he moved from the Waikato to Marlborough with his family.
The self-taught artist enjoys painting wildlife and many of his paintings are of birdlife, though he would like to branch out into New Zealand animals like trout and deer for variety.
Drawing was something he always enjoyed and was good at when he was growing up, and he always admired other artists’ work.
When he first arrived in Marlborough he lived and worked in Pine Valley. He liked being close to nature, he says.
‘‘It’s all in your face,’’ he says.
The scenery is more impressive than it is in Tokoroa, where he used to live. The landscape there featured a lot of pine trees and dairy farms, he says.
Phill was ‘‘pretty rapt’’ to win the Peters Doig award. He often enters the competition but the last time he won a prize, the Gourmet Province Merit Award, was in 2004. ‘‘I’ve always had a go at getting something in. ‘‘It’s good to know people like what I do.’’ It is difficult to fit in his painting around his fulltime job as an arborist for power company Marlborough Lines, but he tries to do ‘‘a little bit each day’’, he says.
He begins painting with an idea in his head, but it often changes and evolves as he works. ‘‘A lot of thinking goes into it. ‘‘I’ve got a picture in my mind, it’s just working out how I’m going to do it.’’
He used to work exclusively in watercolour, but has ‘‘drifted into oil’’ and has found it gives him more control over colours, he says. He also works in charcoal and pencil. ‘‘I like to play around and experiment,’’ he says. Phill has exhibited at galleries but admits he is no good at the marketing side of painting.
‘‘It would be nice to get someone to do that for me.’’
His sister has organised a Facebook page for him, Art by Phill Dunn, where some of his paintings can be seen, and he thinks he will have a website soon as well.
Lately, Phill has found that painting is occupying most of his free time, but he likes gardening and fishing when he gets the chance.
He likes the fact Marlborough has ‘‘everything on the old back doorstep’’.
He worked in the logging industry in the Waikat, and got involved in logging when he first moved to Marlborough. He had a job lined up, but trusted everything else to chance.
‘‘We risked everything and came down here, and it turned out,’’ he says. The years have ‘‘flown by’’.
When asked if there is any advice he would give budding artists, Phill says to never give up.
‘‘Something I say to my kids is ‘don’t think you can’t do it’. Give it a go, just keep trying.
‘‘It’s not going to happen in five minutes. I’m still learning myself and still improving, hopefully.’’